The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories eBook

Gradually the paroxysm passed and she grew quieter;
but she still clung closely to him, and at length
with difficulty she began to speak.

“Oh, Eustace, it’s all so horrible!
I can’t help seeing it. I’m sure
he’s dead, or, if he isn’t, it’s
almost worse. And I was so—­unkind to
him the last time we were together. I thought
he was cross, but I know now he was only miserable;
and I never dreamt I was never going to see him again,
or I wouldn’t have been so—­so horrid!”

Haltingly, pathetically, the poor little confession
was gasped out through quivering sobs and the face
of the man who listened was no longer a stony mask;
it was alight and tender with a compassion too great
for utterance.

He bent a little lower over her, pressing her head
closer to his heart; and she heard its beating, slow
and strong and regular, through all the turmoil of
her distress.

“Poor child!” he said. “Poor
child!”

It was all the comfort he had to offer, but it was
more to her than any other words he had ever spoken.
It voiced a sympathy which till that moment had been
wholly lacking—­a sympathy that she desired
more than anything else on earth.

He laid her very tenderly back on the pillow, and
sat down beside her.

“You won’t dream while I am here,”
he said.

She clasped his hand closely in both her own and begged
him tremulously to kiss her. By the dim light
of her night-lamp she could scarcely see his face;
but as her lips met his a great peace stole over her.
She felt as if he had stretched out his hands to her
across the great, dividing gulf that had opened between
them and drawn her to his side.

About a quarter of an hour later Eustace Tudor rose
noiselessly and stood looking down at his young wife’s
sleeping face. It was placid as an infant’s,
and her breathing was soft and regular. He knew
that, undisturbed, she would sleep so for hours.

And so he did not dare to kiss her. He only bowed
his head till his lips touched the coverlet beneath
which she lay; and then stealthily, silently, he crept
away.

CHAPTER X

A CHANGE OF PRISONERS

Heavens, how the night crawled! Phil Turner,
bound hand and foot, and cruelly cramped in every
limb, hitched himself to a sitting posture and began
to calculate how long he probably had to live.

There was no moon, but the starlight entered his prison—­it
was no more than a mud hut, but had it been built
of stone walls many feet thick his chance would scarcely
have been lessened. It was merely a question of
time, he knew, and he marvelled that his fate had been
delayed so long.

To use his comrade’s descriptive language, he
had expected “a knife and good-bye” full
twenty hours before. But neither had been his
portion. He had been made a prisoner before he
was fully awake, and hustled away to the native fort
before sunrise. He had been given chupatties
to eat and spring water to drink, and, though painfully
stiff from his bonds, he was unwounded.